Songwriter rising

McDermott’s album, Willow Springs, is named after his peaceful new home.

You’d think Michael McDermott’s best memory of Wrigley Field would be the time he took in a Cubs game with one of his fans by the name of Stephen King. That Stephen King. But you’d be wrong. Instead, the Chicago native’s most cherished moments there have been singing the National Anthem, something he does about five times each year, most recently in a daring, harmonized version with his wife/collaborator Heather Horton.

“It’s not an easy song to sing. It always comes with some butterflies — but no major catastrophes to speak of so far,” says McDermott.

McDermott knows a whole lot about catastrophes. More on that in a moment. For now, the 48-year-old is buoyed by the critical success of his newest record, a monument to despair and redemption called Willow Springs. Glide calls it “one of his most pointed and provocative efforts yet.”

But McDermott, who rolls into the High Noon on June 4, has other reasons to feel positive. He recently marked five years of sobriety. And if there was ever a guy who needed to get sober, it was McDermott.

At 24, the Washington Post dubbed him, “the next Bruce Springsteen.” Rolling Stone and The New York Times also raved. Airplay and appearances on MTV are what grabbed the attention of novelist Stephen King, who quoted McDermott’s lyrics in his book Insomnia. King called him up at his home in Orland Park, Illinois, and took him to the Cubs game. They even toured Graceland together.

McDermott washed down the star treatment with cocaine, crack, “a little heroin and, of course, alcohol just to mask it all.” His was a lifestyle of soused survival that included, among other emergencies, a reported run-in with a scissors-wielding stripper, Cook County Jail time, and alleged relations with assorted mafia types.

That was then. Now? Well, sobriety can bring stability but it doesn’t put life on hold. In the past five-plus years McDermott has taken the good with the bad: the birth of his daughter, the passing of his father, and a family move from the suburbs of Chicago to the country. Specifically, to a little town that is the new album’s namesake, Willow Springs, a spot McDermott says is “15 miles from 20 years back in time.”

Turns out it was the perfect place for someone like McDermott to take stock of midlife. Musically and emotionally, Willow Springs has the variety of Dylan’s opus Blood on the Tracks. You’ll hear why Dylan is often mentioned in the same breath as McDermott during such songs as, “Half Empty Kinda Guy,” a thank-you note for a life that is less complicated. “I can’t see the rainbow, I can only see the rain. I can’t see the heavens, I can only see the sky,” he sings.

Even as it parodies the genre, “Folksinger” is an ode to authenticity. Still, like the best folk songwriters, McDermott’s stock in trade is introspection, as found on the seven-minute tribute to his late father, “Shadow in the Window.”

McDermott is getting used to things going well again, although he’s still surprised by the impact his work has on others. When a well-dressed audience member approached him after a Florida show, a dubious McDermott thought he looked “demanding.”

“He came up to me and said, ‘Can I hug you? I’ve never hugged something so honest,’” says McDermott.